Guest blog post by David Kappos, Under Secretary For
Intellectual Property and Director, United States Patent and Trademark Office, Department of Commerce

At a ceremony at the White House Friday, I had the
pleasure to join President Obama as he honored recipients of the National Medal
of Technology and Innovation—the highest honor bestowed by the United States
government on our nation’s brightest innovators and inventors.

Whether unraveling the information intertwined in a DNA
helix, improving the safety of air travel, or digitizing the way we capture
memories of loved ones—the medal recipients have offered humanity new tools to
tackle some of the toughest challenges we confront as a planet. Moreover, by
improving our understanding of the world around us, they have rewritten
textbook fundamentals—and inspired a new generation of thinkers to explore
unfamiliar terrain.

Much like the thousands of patent and trademark
applications, the Commerce Department's United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) carefully examines each and every day, the National
Medal of Technology & Innovation serves as a reminder that our nation
continues to be built by those willing to challenge traditions—willing to push
the boundaries of convention and willing to test new limits in design and
thought.

The exhibition, The Great American Hall of Wonders, examining the 19th-century American belief that the people of the United States shared a special genius for innovation, is now open at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. It is a collaborative effort between the museum and Commerce's U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and explores six subjects – three natural resources, three man-made inventions – that helped shape America during this period: the buffalo, Giant Sequoia, Niagara Falls, the gun, the railroad and the clock. The exhibition will focus on the ways these six subjects brought together artistic, scientific and technological ways of seeing the world.

In addition to providing creative and technical assistance for development of the exhibition, the USPTO has played a part in the public program development by working with the museum to provide: speakers for university level courses as well as inventors from the National Inventors’ Hall of Fame for a lecture series. There will also be a day and a half long inventors symposium held at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the USPTO will take the lead in providing experts to address the many challenges facing independent inventors and entrepreneurs.